Хроники самоизоляции: Айя София (En)

These photos were taken in February 2010: that was the very first time I went overseas with my friends, thanks to their help and support. These photos are all of very poor quality: I didn’t have a good camera at the time, and my photographic skills, however bad, were perhaps somewhat worse 10 years ago. The photos portray the interior of Hagia Sophia, a legendary Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), which was the greatest cathedral of the whole Byzantium Empire.

The current Turkish government wants to turn it into a mosque. This is not happening for the first time. Once the greatest symbol of Eastern Orthodoxy, Hagia Sophia was transformed into a mosque under the Ottoman Empire and remained as such for nearly 500 years. Yet the time of modernity came, a bit of common sense prevailed (it doesn’t happen very often, does it?), and Hagia Sophia was then left in peace—sadly, not as a church for its wide congregation, but as a historical museum. At least, like that.

But times have changed yet again, and the new (not very, but in terms of speaking about history) Turkish government has decided to join the competition with their long dead leader, Kemal Atatürk, for the leading role in the historical process. They are trying to secure their power, and first and foremost, the religious one, amongst the most radical part of their population, which offers them full political support. As for the Constantinople Patriarch, Bartholomew I (Πατριάρχης Βαρθολομαῖος), his opinion wasn’t considered when the decision to strip the (never appropriate) museum status from Hagia Sophia was made.

So, here we are: despite the UNESCO concerns and the outburst of fury from the Eastern Orthodox community, the most precious gem of Byzantium culture may disappear forever. I am not a good Eastern Orthodox Christian: I don’t participate fully in religious activities at the church, neither I observe the religious schedules, such as the Lents. But I find the news about converting Hagia Sophia into an Islamic object deeply wrong and devastating.

I hope (without any real hope, of course) that once made, this decision might be taken back, but I don’t seriously believe that it will. We are losing Sophia, which is wisdom in Greek. It feels like we have lost it forever.